The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

Here is a chest shot.




His legs and feet are what I would call tan. Not white but not yellow.

What do you think Sommer?

I think he has the pink Sussex feet, which is the dominant gene, so that makes total sense!

I like the amount of white that I'm seeing on his chest. The Sussex, they start out with white chests as babies and then the spots "spread out" over the body as they mature. The Swedish, they have tons of white all over, on the backs, necks, etc. And then, just like the Alohas from the Buff Rock lines, the Swedish also have a ton of white just drop off them as they reach four months old, and are left with teeny white dots. And the third one is Exchequer Leghorns, who are dark on top and light around the face and underside, just like little penguins, and then the white moves around for a "checkered" look but they don't really lose the white, they are still about 50/50 white and dark as aduits.

I find it really puzzling that they are now saying all of these are the exact same gene - mottling - but it acts so differently in the three different breeds. Alohas will now have all of the different breeds in their pedigrees. All I can do is hope that if we keep breeding the ones that keep the white, that eventually a more predictable pattern is going to emerge, and at some point we'll be able to predict what our baby Alohas will look like all grown up.

My most exciting news this week, is in that pen of grow-out chicks, I have one chick that looks to be a true Ginger hen but with bright yellow legs. If that's the case, she would be the first. Of course then all the chicks started to peck on her and drew blood, so I isolated her in a cage to heal up before it got out of hand. I am hoping she'll be able to be re-introduced to the baby flock again in a few days without that happening again? Arrrrrgh!!!

 

[alohachickens]

jbolt and notinoz, Congrats on your developing eggs!!!!!! So exciting!

hechicken, that is so peculiar how slowly those leghorns are feathering in!

My Buff Sussex chicks arrived today from Colorado. Twelve were shipped but one didn't make it. The others are all healthy, happy and zipping around. I'm so thrilled to finally have some of these birds. I think their contributions to color and type are going to make them well worth the large numbers of pennies I spent to get them here!

In the meantime, I have my huge New Hamp hens with the Aloha rooster and will start collecting their eggs, along with the three remaining Aloha hen's eggs to incubate in about a week.

Last night, a pack of coyotes tried to get through my electric fence. They didn't make it through but managed to lay one of the posts over at a 45 degree angle. I took all the penned birds and put them in the hen house -- it was dark so it was easy enough. Then I closed all of the birds in the house just in case the coyotes came back and tried again. They didn't. The German NH rooster and the Aloha rooster were doing fine so I thought it would be okay to leave them out to enjoy the sunshine and warmth before the cold front comes through. They were fine until sometime in the late afternoon when the Aloha rooster beat up the GNH (twice the Alohas size) terribly. His comb was almost pecked clear through and it was torn. What an awful sight. I'm putting the pen inside the house tonight so the GNH can still be with the other birds but be safe while he heals. Sheesh.

Deerfield - Thank goodness your fence stopped the coyotes! Hope they learned a lesson, but wow that was quite the forceful attack, wasn't it?

Sorry to hear about the Aloha roo hurting your GNH. That is odd for two reasons - one because the GNH is twice his size, and second, I do house roos together all the time here and rarely have any incidents. I found that Cheeto (Buff Rock cross roo) really HATED the Aloha roo "Flame" and he tormented him terribly. Luckily, Flame was faster and more nimble! Thanks to that, Cheeto never injured Flame seriously. (I will say that Cheeto truly did want to hurt Flame, however.)

Other than that, about a month ago, my Swedish Flower rooster beat the heck out of his son. His son did recover, but took a while. Now he's backed off and they are getting along OK. (Crosses fingers.) That's about it so far? So I'd have to say in general, that fighting does not seem to be a huge issue. Right now I have three roos in the same 20 x 20 pen and they just try to stay out of each other's way.

I am so excited about your Buff Sussex! And those Aloha x GNH chicks will be nice. I bet you can keep the few hens and pick out a brand new roo from the chicks that HEChicken brought over, and pull some nice color out of that next generation. I hope. Guess we just have to wait and see if those new baby Aloha roos actually keep that white or drop too much at four months? If they start to drop it, I'd suggest taking the GNH x Aloha cross chicks and seeing if those pure Sussex roos from Ideal are looking spotty?

 

[alohachickens]

Last note on roos - I have found the Sussex roos and Exchequer roos to be the least aggressive. Most aggressive has been Buff Rock (Cheeto also pecked my hand once!) and my Swedish roo who recently has been trying to attack my legs and drew blood (on me) which is why I plan on culling him and keeping his sweeter-tempered part Aloha son as a replacement. Another friend of mine had to re-home her Swedish rooster recently because he started to attack her toddler.

Also, all of my roos have been much more aggressive and territorial this spring in general. (Towards me and towards each other.) I find that if they free-range together, they figure out who is #1, #2, #3, etc. But if they are in the breeder pens, they get more defensive of their territory, like dogs kept on a chain. It also may be seasonal, a friend of mine observed her roos did act differently during Spring so it could simply be hormone spikes. I have not had issues with roos attacking me personally until this year, but this is also the first year I set up three breeder pens so maybe the boys are extra defensive right now???

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Sommer, that's a beautiful pen of birds.

That's been my experience with the cock birds as well. If they are raised together, I've not had any problems at all. Once they've been in a breeder pen for a month or so, all bets are off and the fight is on.

I am also liking #210. He's not one of the smallest at 15.59 oz., so that's good. It's a crap shoot, though, until they reach that magical 4 month mark. I'm holding my breath until then. I'm going to photograph and weigh them again once they reach 4 months. It will be fun to see how different they are in that short amount of time. Can anyone believe that I got a solid red bird out of those eggs? That's crazy! I managed to get a solid red from my Swedish Flowers also. What are the odds?

That coyote attack was out of hand. They haven't been back since. I haven't even heard a tiny little squeak from them but they'll be back and I'll be prepared with an even stronger energizer! Take that!

HEChicken, I've heard that the coyotes around here have crossed with stray domestic dogs and don't have the usual shyness of normal coyotes. I don't know what causes them to be so brazen here. It's really unnerving to hear them so close at hand, especially when you are outside. Because of the dark, I never saw even one of them. I need to put a flood light out there. I have learned that when they go silent, they are running away. This time they ran away only to the back property line, though. The whole thing is terribly disconcerting. I was really thankful for the electric fence and that I had upgraded the energizer. That low impedance energizer would have never held them off.

 

[jbolt]

Ok all you aloha ppl, I'm very new to this breeding project, and am just now growing out some aloha type crosses that I got from alohachickens. I found this website while researching mottling gene and how it reacts. I believe it might explain the confetti type coloring and how to or not to breed that. You all may know this or have seen it before, but I found it to be rather informative. http://www.chickencolours.com/TollbuntWyanEng.pdf

 

[Deerfield Acres]

jbolt, interesting article! So there is this crazy lacing, penciling, mottling soup that's making this so difficult for us to repeat color patterns. It has been interesting ruling out some of the color patterns that don't work and now I'm really ready to rule some in! The problem I face is I just can't completely grasp all the genetic concepts. I've studied all kinds of things and picked things up really quickly but the color genetics are kicking my butt. Maybe it's the time of my life I'm attempting to learn it? So maybe it's something I'm just going to have to rely on others to break it down for me. I hate to admit I don't get it, but I just don't get it. I've bought books specifically on the subject, read them, and still don't get it. Sheesh.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

jbolt, interesting article! So there is this crazy lacing, penciling, mottling soup that's making this so difficult for us to repeat color patterns. It has been interesting ruling out some of the color patterns that don't work and now I'm really ready to rule some in! The problem I face is I just can't completely grasp all the genetic concepts. I've studied all kinds of things and picked things up really quickly but the color genetics are kicking my butt. Maybe it's the time of my life I'm attempting to learn it? So maybe it's something I'm just going to have to rely on others to break it down for me. I hate to admit I don't get it, but I just don't get it. I've bought books specifically on the subject, read them, and still don't get it. Sheesh.

Try Genetics of Chicken Colours. The tolbunt article is from it. There may be some more on the website; there should be ordering information, too. It is well-worth the cost.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Sonoran Silkies, thanks for the info. I think I will spring for this book because it certainly is clearer than anything I've read so far. Maybe if I just keep trying, I'll finally get it!

 

[alohachickens]

Ok all you aloha ppl, I'm very new to this breeding project, and am just now growing out some aloha type crosses that I got from alohachickens. I found this website while researching mottling gene and how it reacts. I believe it might explain the confetti type coloring and how to or not to breed that. You all may know this or have seen it before, but I found it to be rather informative. http://www.chickencolours.com/TollbuntWyanEng.pdf

That's fascinating! What a gorgeous, gorgeous color. I did find the text a bit hard to follow - was that just me?

 

[alohachickens]

HEChicken - I was cleaning out the barn yesterday and found a scorpion. I thought of you! Too bad you weren't here to see it, right? LOL!!!

Luckily, I had a pitchfork in my hand which made squishing it from afar fairly easy. It was right where my girls usually dust bathe. I've never seen a scorpion out there before in my yard, but it makes total sense. My friend's son has been staying here with his pit bull so everyone has been cooped up pretty much since January. I may let a some out for a couple hours right before dusk, while the new dog stays in the house, but it's nothing like the often 24/7 free-range time they are used to.

My house guests and guest dog are now visiting family in another town for a while, so the chickens will be out in full force this week to search the yard for nasty scorpions. Good news is, at the end we started to do supervised chicken/dog time with the new dog, and it was going really well. I still feel like he needs supervision just in case, but we sat with the dog for a few hours for three nights in a row, and he just watched the chickens. Made no moves to hurt them. Yay!